Matthew Flinchbaugh

Finally, Microsoft has released the band-aid to their public view that fixes what was caused by their prior operating system (Windows Vista). I have been running win7 since about this time last year under beta test, and again under the Release Candidate.  As many have been counting on the release of this version of windows.

So lets see what the overview of win7 is.

OVERVIEW:

Reason for release: Well basically windows vista had a lot to be expected, and never delivered. Many people heard all the troubles with windows vista and decided to hold off on getting a new pc, or upgrading their current pc, to the late operating system. Those who did jump in whether knowingly or unknowingly were not satisfied with vista. There were a lot of compatibility issues, with older hardware, and even new hardware.  The hardware requirements were outrageous. The recommended minimum memory was 2gb. Though with this recommendation PC makers decided to sell computers with 512mb of ram running windows vista. I had one of these in a laptop. The laptop sucked. Toshiba did a very large trick to its customers by creating this low end laptop and putting less then basically the minimum hardware in. All in all the disadvantages of vista heavily out weighed the advantages.

Windows 7 is none of the above.

MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS:

• Less hardware requirement, win 7 will install on any computer with 1gb or more of ram. If you have 999mb it will not install which kinda sucks depending on your brand memory/computer. Some Dell’s I have come across have 1gb of ram but it registers as something like 996mb. windows 7 sees this as less that 1gb so it will not install.
• Compatibility has been greatly resolved. I have hardware that will not work in vista with out some major behind the scene hacks, and modifications, that worked flawlessly with windows 7.
• The overall install process takes less than 15 mins total from the time you insert the disc to the time you are logged in and browsing the net. I have never seen a windows install any where near this fast. Though the install process did slow down from the release candidate to the actually released version. the RC installed in about 8 minutes. Which is amazing. I know of no other os installing this fast.
• Overall system speed is very improved. Vista even on a 2gb system could not dream of running as fast as win7 on 1gb. The speed of processes are much much faster.
• Overall operating system hard drive space requirement. win7 requires a min of 15gb.
• Available space versus system performance. It used to be with windows that when you began to fill your hard drive and began getting that low storage space error windows was already running almost completely unusable. That is not true any more. On the first computer I ever installed win7 on, i resized the hard drive partitions and allowed win 7 its min hard drive requirement 15gb and then shortly after had the available space down to 250mb and the computer performance was the same as a computer running with 485gb available on the hard drive. (upon install and all updates installed 12gb was taken.)

Visual Changes:

They redesigned the user interface a little bit from vista and for those of you coming from xp, a lot. The task bar now has icons instead of the old bar that xp and vista had. when you open multiple windows of the same app say internet explorer, there is only 1 icon on the taskbar.

That User Access Control (UAC) that always pops up asking if you want to allow some action to happen, does not come up as much anymore as it did in vista. XP users don’t scratch your head to hard, you never saw this.  Also I have yet to see the UAC pop up in the background while you are waiting on the install to continue, and you don’t realize it till you close the installer because you got tired of it sitting there or you thought it crashed.

Overall windows 7 has been a great investment of my time for the past year. And a relief to have installed on my machines. I highly recommend this for anyone with issues with windows vista. Or for those looking at new pc’s this is not a reason to hold back. Windows 7 is great in my mind. I don’t mean to sound like a windows or Microsoft fan boy. because i surely am not. However i have been praising this operating system since about a week after I installed it for the first time. Thank you Microsoft for getting something right for once in your existence.

Just remember to backup everything and make sure you check twice that you have it all because if you install/upgrade the way everyone recommends as do i your files will be lost. Its definitely a hassle but it is worth it in the end.